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Gary Gensler, chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, told senators that the CFTC should complete its guidance on cross-border derivatives rules by July 12. Gensler said that a proposal from CFTC member Mark Wetjen would mean delaying the rules. "It means delay and I think we've had a year to do this," Gensler said about Wetjen's suggestion. "The American public should hold us to task if we can't get this done by July 12."

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Gary Gensler, outgoing chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, noted regulators' efforts to balance competing needs as they wrote the rules mandated by the Dodd-Frank Act. "We struck the right balance, but we live in a great democracy, and as we move from Congress to the rule-writing agencies some inevitably do end up in the courts," Gensler said. "We think we struck the right balance and particularly on the cross-border rules."

Former Sen. Blanche Lincoln, an Arkansas Democrat who played a key role in drafting the Dodd-Frank Act, writes that the Commodity Futures Trading Commission should delay finalizing rules governing cross-border swaps in order to allow international regulators to catch up with the progress made by the agency. CFTC Chairman Gary Gensler has put the U.S. in a leadership position by pushing to develop these rules, but should now wait for an international agreement that would permit the U.S. to respect foreign regulatory agencies' policies, Lincoln writes.

Six Democratic senators -- New York's Charles Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, Delaware's Tom Carper, North Carolina's Kay Hagan, North Dakota's Heidi Heitkamp and Colorado's Michael Bennet -- have told Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chairman Gary Gensler that more time is needed before the cross-border swaps rules are put into force July 12. Forging ahead without coordinating with regulation overseas, they say, will add undue risk to the derivatives market. SIFMA President Kenneth Bentsen Jr. said the association will continue its discussions with the CFTC "because we have this fast approaching deadline and we have no idea of where the chairman's going."

Mark Wetjen, a member of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, said at the International Derivatives Expo in London that a deal over cross-border swaps-trading rules will not likely be in place by the July 12 deadline, though he was optimistic that an accord could be hammered out within weeks rather than months. In the meantime, Wetjen suggested an interim arrangement and regulatory relief in an effort to help compliance among market participants and provide legal certainty over rules stemming from the Dodd-Frank Act.

There is growing dissension at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission over how to apply its derivatives rules to cross-border transactions. Three of the five commissioners are questioning the timeline set by the chairman for adopting final guidelines on this issue. "We should not allow ourselves to careen toward an arbitrary and self-imposed deadline, especially when that deadline does not coincide with the implementation of other comparable regimes," said Mark Wetjen, one of the three commissioners.